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Evan Odell
Currently searching for a position at the intersections of public policy, health and data. I’ve built many R packages to streamline social science research and maintain a widely used dataset of UK parliamentary speeches far superior to the official version. I make interactive maps of things like the relationship between housing prices and public transport services, or the amount of land given over to golfing.
Education
Visiting Student
University of British Columbia
Vancouver
2014 - 2013
BA (Honours) in Political Science
Laurentian University
Sudbury/Barrie, Canada
2014 - 2009
Professional Experience
Freelance Project Manager
Disability Rights UK
Berlin
Nov 2020 - Aug 2020
- Managing a three month programme of public engagement and communication to inform the UK government’s forthcoming Disability Strategy.
Researcher
Disability Rights UK
London
Aug 2020 - Jun 2016
- Conducted original quantitative research and data analysis on a range of topics, with an emphasis on health and welfare state issues.
- Testified before House of Lords Economics Select Committee on serious issues in the UK’s flagship welfare policy.
Instructor in Health Studies
Queen’s University, Bader International Study Centre
East Sussex
May 2019
- Designed and taught “Disability Studies: Issues, Research and Policy”, a final-year undergraduate course with a particular focus on public health and comparative analysis of welfare states.
Freelance Data Analyst
London Business School
London
Oct 2018 - Jun 2018
- Designed a methodology to analyse parliamentary speeches using structured topic models, and wrote methods section, data visuals and statistical tables for use in a future paper.
- Analysed speeches in Hansard to identify differences in the topics and language style between male and female Labour MPs, and between female Labour MPs selected through open or all-women shortlists.
Performance and Impact Officer
Future Leaders Trust
London
2016 - 2015
- Conducted primary and secondary analysis of school performance data, disseminated results internally through presentations and internal reports, and externally through press releases.
- Co-authored the first original research report published by the Trust, responsible for data collection and methodology, and contributed to the writing of the report.
Selected Projects
NHS Unified Information Standard - Protected Characteristics
NHS
N/A
Aug 2020 - Mar 2020
- Developed a schema of 11 categories and a range of nested subcategories to identify public health inequalities amongst people with disabilities.
Use of apps in healthcare treatment
NHS
N/A
Apr 2020 - Jan 2020
- Conducted a series of interviews on behalf of the National Health Service on patient experience of public health apps.
- Wrote report advising on future strategies for integrating apps and other technology into healthcare personalisation efforts in the UK.
Access to Advice Services in London
Nuffield Foundation
N/A
Feb 2020 - Dec 2019
- Identified civil society organisations providing ad-hoc advice on different topics, using open charity data and web scraping.
Young People’s Attitudes to Disability
Lottery Community Fund
N/A
Aug 2019 - Apr 2018
- Conducted focus groups with 42 children aged 12-14 with and without disabilities on their attitudes to and experiences of disability.
Inclusive Education and Co-Production
European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities
N/A
Jun 2019 - Dec 2018
- Conducted a systematic review of research on attitudes to co-production in education amongst teachers, parents and students.
Selected Publications and Reports
Getting it right the first time: Financial penalties to improve disability benefit assessments
LawArXiv. 10.31228/osf.io/jksyp
N/A
2020
Energy Impairment and Disability Inclusion
With Catherine Hale, Stef Benstead, Jenny Lyus and Anna Ruddock
N/A
2020
- Primarily responsible for dataviz and survey analysis
External evaluation of the Bridge to Work Programme
With Jane Aston, Lauren Bennett, Hannah Murphy and Tony Stevens
N/A
2019
Hansard Speeches 1979-2018
N/A
A comprehensive and widely used dataset covering almost 40 years of UK parliamentary speeches.
2019
Lonely schools: The relationship between geographic isolation and academic attainment
Educational Research, 59(3), 257–272. 10.1080/00131881.2017.1339285
N/A
2017
Selected R Packages
nomisr: Access Nomis UK Labour Market Data
Journal of Open Source Software, 3(27), 859. 10.21105/joss.00859
N/A
2018
- Part of rOpenSci